last monday, had numbing pains in my left leg and left arrse cheek, felt like someone had given me a dead leg, went to work as usual on tuesday.
by the end of the day, i looked like quasimodo( poss mong spelling there),
went sick to the MO, sent me home saying,well not alot, you have sciatica,
dont rest to much, just keep active, your back is in spasm, so we cant really do much at the moment. given dihydrocodeine and diazapam.
the tablets certainly helped with the pain and helping me sit/stand alot better.make me feel spaced out though.
went back to see mo expecting to be refferred to see physio, sent me off with, 'these things take time and you can stay off work till the end of the month'. GREAT, im going out of my mind with boredom,surerly a physio would of been more use.
i did look it up on nhs direct, their advice was about as much use as a chocolate tea pot.

You have my sympathy mate, sciatica is a bitch. A friend of mine has been signed off with it for the last three weeks, her treatment and advice is the same as yours, but she decided to go see her chiropracter, it seems to have helped.
She also finds that putting a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel, on the affected area, gives a little relief.

Im having exaclty the same problem at the minute, I aint serving anymore so had to go to my gp for the first time since leaving the mob and he was about as much use as chocolate fire guard.
Can anyone give any advice?!

My Pa suffers from it now and then, a chiropractor seems to help, but his originates from old injuries, namely a smashed femur and trauma to the lower back.

This will sound a little strange, but when I get bouts of it - rarely and mild, I stand on a high step and hang the other leg, letting my hip joint and base of spine on that side completely relax. Sometimes it feels like my leg will fall off, but it seems to release what ever was trapped and the aching goes away after a day or so.

Chiropracter worth a go, try and get word of mouth recommendation rather than just the yellow pages

And do you know why you got it? A chiropracter will assess your musculature for weaknesses/imbalances - they may also ask about your work environment and whether it has been properly assessed. Do you work at a desk? Is it set up right? When did occ. health last assess it? That sort of thing.

For relief sandman has a point, cold or heat may help - try the suggested but spasm will probably be better with warmth (muscle relaxant) so try and get hold of a microwaveable heat pad from Boots.

I suffered with this before being diagnosed with a prolapsed disc, which was causing the sciatic nerve to become trapped.
My Sis, who is a Oesteopath, recommended me to sit on a hard floor, legs straight out in front of you, with a tennis ball under your butt cheek (right on the point of pain). Then gentlly roll the ball around the area of pain using my bodyweight. You just have to use your hands to raise yourself a few inches. The idea is to ease the nerve, and make it relax.
This relieved the pain for me almost immediately.....

My chiropractor was a miracle worker, find a good one from recommendations, don't just pick one out of Yellow Pages and start see him/her on a regular basis.

In the meantime, Ibuprofen and this is going to sound weird but it does help. Lie on your back, bring your knees slowly up to your chest and 'hug' them, breathe out and pull your knees in some more. What it's doing is opening your hips out which releases trapped nerves and provides some temporary relief. As with all things like this, take it very slow and if there are any twinges, stop.

I would get to a chiro as soon as. My GP said I had Sciatica and to 'stay active' last November. The Chiro she refered to me found the slipped disk which was the root cause. He said stop all exercise immediatly and has only this month let me go back to the swimming pool.

My brother has the same thing, caused by a prolapse disc. He has been through everything, chiropractor, oesteopath, homeopath, pysio, Army MO, BUPA, Civ GP, massage and even acupunture and warm stones put on his back.

He paid to go to Harley St for advice, long and short was some things work for some people some of the time but other than surgery with no guarentees, there is little he could do.

Recently my mother bought him a tempra mattress, which he was sceptical of but after usign it he has not had a re-occurance for nearly a year. He still has to be carefull and do stretching exercises but its the best he has had since it started in 1998.

I have suffered from this on and off for a few years now following an injury. When really bad takes ages to stand up and then can only remain aloft for a few minutes. Even sitting up is a fatherless.

How bad is it? Well two years ago took delivery of a car that I had lusted after for ages. Day before I was due to pick it up the dread pain struck and my wife had to go get it. I could not even get into the thing for a week!

Now people say should keep moving etc but in my case I have found that just makes it worse. There is no substitute for what amounts to not much more than taking the weight off my spine as much as possible for 3/4 days and then avoiding stress the spine for a week or so. That allows the damaged disc to recover.

cheers for the advice troops, much appreciated,
if memory serves me well, i first got this back in 93, at the time we were doing pt every day, stickman was determined that we would all be fitter than the paras. monday was troop pt,4/5 miler, tuesday was sqn pt, normally between 6-8 miles (fast pace as pti was 15 foot tall), normally with hill reps chucked in to let the stragglers catch up, wednesday was the only day of relief, we went swimming, plus a sports afternoon, which you had to do,
thursday was meant to be circuit training with the pti's, WRONG, lets go for another run to the back gate,7.3 miles exactly. friday was either a tab, now you knew you were in for a beasting when the bergen weights were on part ones, low weight meant fast speed,
high weight meant slightly slower speed but more milage,, now and again he would let us off with a bft,
it was on the saturday after a particularly heavy tab that i felt it first, spent all weekend relaxing and stretching it off and was ok by monday morning, got it again after sitting in the passenger seat of a drops all day, again stretched it off.
this time i was in a drops all day as a driver,but have never had it this bad before.
as for weight, im 11 stone,so that isn't an issue.
pt has now relaxed due to a new oc about a year ago,half the sqn were on the biff with one ailment or another.
i will speak to the bloke across the roads mrs she is a physio, she advised rest till muscle had stopped spasming, see if she knows a good osteopath, chiroprac type doctor

I've been having probs with it too, 2 paracetamols 3/4xday is one of the best things, providing you stick with it. You can take it along side the brufen (check its not a preparation with paracetamol in though). I've found red (Not white) tiger balm massaged into the sore bits really helped too.
Getting to the cause of it prob is the best idea though, I was told it'd go in 6th months, it hasn't so now I'm sick of trying to be tough, I'm gonna go all out to sort it!